Snow Days!!!!

I have been enjoying the snow that we got over the past few days. School was cancelled Thursday and Friday, so I have been taking advantage of the chance to sleep in and be lazy. Though I should be spending more of this extra time preparing for finals which are next week. :P I have been horribly unmotivated though.
On Thursday I did get a wonderful surprise in the form of an e-mail invitation for an interview at Kansas State University Vet school! I was so thrilled! It isn't until January 19th, so I have some time to prepare for it.
While I love the snow, I have not enjoyed dealing with the drama that ensued within my goat trip (the term for a herd of goats). I have three full-sized goats and three miniature goats. The little ones get along just fine and can all fit into one of those big, igloo style dog houses. The big goats are a different story. I have a mom and her two grown daughters. Well, one of the daughters is a jerk to her mom and sister and was keeping them out of the shelter on Thursday night, even though there was plenty of room for all three of them inside. So my dad and I had to go out in the cold and occasionally sleet (not to mention it being practically the middle of the night, we are night owls) and set up a second pen with a makeshift shelter in it to put Florecita in so she wouldn't freeze out Sombrita and Faline. We managed to set up a pretty decent shelter considering it was dark and the weather. We got Florecita in there and gave them all some extra feed and hay and went back inside where we had some hot cocoa and then went to bed. When I went out there Friday morning Florecita was not in the little pen... she had somehow managed to get back into the big pen! So then we put Sombrita and Falline in the little pen since the shelter was big enough for both of them and seemed to have kept out all but a little bit of snow. We also used some old baling wire to seal the gate between the two better than before. That seemed to work fine. Today I just opened the gate between the two and hopefully Florecita will appreciate the warmth that Sombrita and Faline could provide now.
As the days go on, I think I will be glad to be able to get out again, though I would gladly take a few more days like this early next year! Church has been cancelled for tomorrow so I will have another day to sleep in and devote to studying (hopefully! lol!) before my first final on Tuesday. Thankfully my hard ones are on Wednesday and Thursday, so I will have even more time to prepare for them.

I hope you all stay safe if you are experiencing similar weather! Enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Here are some pictures from my house.

This is Faramir, one of the little goats. He's a sweetie!

I thought it was amusing that their "igloo" house was covered in snow, yeah, I'm easily amused. haha!

Lucy absolutely LOVES the snow!!! If I stayed out there with her, she would play in it for hours and hours. I think the only thing she doesn't like is when the snow gets packed between her toes. :)

Yummy Scarf

I actually finished this scarf quite a long time ago, but I'm finally getting around to taking pictures of it and posting them on here and on Ravelry. (For those who don't know, Ravelry is an online knitting and crocheting community where you can find patterns, look at other people's projects, and so on.) I actually found this pattern on Ravelry, but it was originally from another blog, so I will link to that at the bottom of the page. The scarf patter is called Morning Snack Scarf, I used a yarn that is 100% baby alpaca, so it is SUPER soft!
Here it is!

As you can see, it goes perfectly with my coat. I actually picked the yarn out while my coat was out in the car, I was pretty sure it would match but then I got out to the car and saw that it was pretty near a perfect match. It made me very happy! :)

And here is a little bit closer shot of the pattern, I think I may have used a little bit thicker yarn than the one in the pattern, but I still think it turned out fantastic!

Here's the link to the pattern. I really enjoyed knitting it.
http://stardustshoes.blogspot.com/2009/03/morning-snack-scarf.html

And that's about all I have for now! I hope to post a bit more regularly. *crosses fingers* We shall see though.

On your marks…

Here's me and Lucy before the 1 mile fun run at the PAWS 5K. PAWS is our local animal shelter and they started doing a 5K as a fundraiser last year. So this year Lucy and I decided to go join in! We just did the 1 mile fun run because I didn't think I'd be ready for a 5K yet and I wanted to bring her too. 

But I think I'm going to shoot for doing the 5K run next year. I also want to do a color run at some point. We'll see if I get to it. Haha! 

Lucy was so excited to see all of the other dogs and all the nice people. Now she is all tuckered out. She crashed on my bedroom floor. Lol! She had a good time though. :)

Sunday scripture

I'm a little late in posting the verse for this Sunday but here it is.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:16-17 ESV)

I hope everyone has a great week!

Lucy Bug

So when I told Lucy that I had posted a picture of her sister Felicity, she must have gotten jealous because not long after she stuck her head in this cat tent to get a toy mouse out of it. But I guess she didn't really know how to get her head back out. So of course I snapped a bunch of photos before I helped her out of it. Tehe! :P I think that she knew I couldn't pass up a photo-op like that one. ;)

Sunday scripture

So I'm going to try to post a Bible verse every Sunday. Hopefully I can manage to post one every week! :)

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5 ESV)

I hope everyone had a blessed Sunday.

My crazy cat

I've decided that my cat must have abandonment issues. She is literally crazy. You can be petting her and she will randomly start biting you! Her tail seems to be set on an automatic setting where it twitches constantly. It twitches even when she is purring sometimes. But I do wonder if all of this has anything to do with the fact that she was lost as a kitten and someone found her in a flower pot on their porch when she was 4 weeks old. I raised her and sometimes I think she considers me her mother, but then at other times I have several scratches healing on my hands and arms and I wonder. Despite all that, I do love her and she is my baby. She sleeps on my bed almost every night. She's crazy, that is for sure, but maybe he just gets that from me. But they do say that insanity is hereditary, you get it from your children, maybe the same is true with pets. Haha!

Reflections on Christmas

I got to thinking about Christmas one Sunday during church and this is what I wrote down. Everyone is always saying "Jesus is the reason for the season". And that is true, He is, but I think that too often we get caught up in the story of the manger and forget to look beyond that. If the story of Christmas stopped at the manger than there is no point to the story or the season at all. If Christ had only come to be born and that was all it wouldn't have mattered. Christ came, not only to be born of a virgin but also to die on the cross for our sins. He took the punishment that was rightfully ours. But again, the story doesn't end there. For He arose! On the third day, just as was foretold. You see, with the resurrection He conquered death, for you and me. And you know what is better than all that? (I know, what could be better?) Christ will come again someday! He will come back for His own and we will live with Him forever.

I got an iPhone!

So this is me testing a post from my new iPhone. We finally bit the bullet and got a data plan. So I decided to get an iPhone and my dad and sister got blackberries. I like it so far! But I'm still getting used to it. But I got the blogger app and I thought I'd try it out!

Without a phone... again

So I did a very brilliant thing on Friday. I decided to put my phone in my back pocket when I went out on the Mule (a four-wheeler/golf cart kind of vehicle) with a friend. Well, it didn't stay in my pocket. We went and looked that night while someone called it repeatedly, my friend went out and looked for it the next day... 2 or 3 times, I went out and looked for it one last time Saturday before it started to get dark. But we still didn't find it. :( This had happened before but we were able to find it the next morning because the alarms were going off. But with this phone I don't set the alarms to repeat, I just turn them on every night. And see, I was trying to be responsible and keep my phone with me in case my dad needed to contact me or something. Well, that plan backfired! I also left my phone in Belize when I was there for a mission trip, so apparently I am not good with phones.
Soooo... I'm looking at getting a new phone. Especially since it proceeded to rain Saturday night. :/ So even if we were to find my phone it would probably be dead. But I was needing a new phone anyways, so I just REALLY need one now. I'm hoping to get an iPhone, if I can convince my dad to get a data plan if I chip in a bit for it. But we'll see. And maybe I shouldn't get one if I'm so bad at losing phones. But I very rarely drop my phone, so at least I don't have to worry about that as much. Even so I'm still going to get an otter box or something like it because I know I will drop it if I have one as breakable as an iPhone.
So there's my life right now. haha! :P

Politics :P

For the most part I try to avoid politics... like the plague. But for today I think I will break my unspoken rule and talk about politics... and how much I dislike them. :P

Here are my reasons for hating politics:

1) I can't stand arguments - To me it seems like so much of politics is just a bunch of mud-slinging and name-calling. I have never liked confrontation and it seems to me that when politics are involved it can get really nasty. I don't mind a bit of debate, as long as those involved can be mature about it and know when to leave it be. But I have seen far too many people get hurt and attacked through political debates on things like Facebook. I have a number of friends that frequently post political things on Facebook, some of them I agree with and some I don't. Don't get me wrong, everyone is entitled to an opinion and I'm happy for you if you feel comfortable posting it for the world to see. See here's the thing, when you are debating politics you are only defending your opinion. In areas such as religion, you are actually defending your faith and your God (or whatever you believe in). It is true that sometimes the two areas can overlap, such as in the case of abortion or gay marriage.

2) There are more important things to worry about - I kind of touched on this in my last point, but I just think too many times people get caught up in the little things. I think if people would focus on the heart of issues such as abortion and gay marriage, there would be less room for debate. Because if you believe in the Bible as I do, or have some other religious standpoint, the answer to things like that is really quite clear. It gets tricky when people try to interpret things differently though, and again, makes things complicate.

3) No one ever agrees with anyone else completely - This kind of relates to the reason above, but it just seems to me that there are so many issues that no one is ever going to completely agree with anyone else. There will always be at least one or two things that they don't agree on, and these things then tend to cause contention

4) I don't like politicians - In my opinion, most politicians are not really the greatest people. In order to get elected they often have to lie. Those that are actually honest are less likely to be elected. I guess I am kind of a blunt person, at least in my head I'm really blunt, I don't always say things because I would never want to hurt someone. But I really hate grey areas, it's either right or wrong, either black or white, and so on. Politicians have to be so vague when they are campaigning in order to appeal to the widest group possible. Now I do know of at least one politician that is pretty great. At least as far as I know. Obviously nobody is perfect. If we were we wouldn't need Christ.

5) They don't glorify God - All of the arguments over politics don't bring glory to God. And that is what we should be focusing on.
I Corinthians 10:31 - So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
This should be the theme of our lives. Before we do or way anything we should check whether it will bring glory to God. I will be the first to admit that I do things that don't glorify God all the time. But I pray that the Spirit convicts me of those things and I will do more things that do glorify God. 


Here is a song that I really like and it puts it all so much more eloquently than I could. (I would also recommend Chris Rice as a really great artist.) And again, I want to emphasize that if you post political things, more power to you. Just understand that I will probably not ever get myself involved (even if I agree with you), and these are my reasons. If someone were to specifically ask my opinion on something I would likely tell them. I will stand up for my beliefs, but I don't like pointless bickering. So now I'll get off my soapbox! lol! I pray I didn't offend anyone, but I just wanted to speak my mind. God bless you all!

Fearing God

I was talking to a good friend of mine one time and the subject of fearing God came up. We both agreed that to us, some people have the wrong kind of fear for God. So here are my thoughts on the subject, after I did a little research.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom... - Psalm 111:10a

This is the verse that everyone quotes when we start talking about fearing God. But how many of us truly grasp what the psalmist is saying in this one verse. I think that too often people are under the impression that they should fear God in a cowering sort of way. Like a puppy flinching at a raised newspaper. But I don't believe that's the message here at all. While it's true we should be afraid if God ever decided to raise His hand against us, that shouldn't be the reason that we obey Him. We should obey Him because we love Him and we respect Him. We need to have a fearful respect, like you would have for any authority figure that you truly trusted. One passage that seemed to illustrate this concept was Nahum 1:2-6 (I won't put it here because it is so long). But what stood out to me even more was the note on this passage in my Scofield Study Bible - "The great ethical lesson of Nahum is that the character of God makes Him not only "slow to anger" (v. 3) and a refuge to those who trust Him (v. 7), but also one who "will not at all aquit the wicked" (v. 3). He can be "just and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus" (Rom. 3:26), but only because His holy law has been vindicated in the cross." That basically sums it up to me. He despises our wickedness and our sins, but because of the cross our debt has been paid. We needn't fear His wrath when we fail - and we will fail. His wrath has already been poured out. When Christ took our sins upon Himself and died for us on the cross.
"Till on that cross, as Jesus died; The wrath of God, was satisfied; For every sin, on Him was laid; Here in the death of Christ, I live." - In Christ Alone by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend

And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant and that I have done all these things at thy word. Hear me, O Lord, ear me, that this people may know that thou art the lord God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The Lord, he is the God; the Lord, he is the God. - I Kings 18:36-39

Our fear of God should lead us to worship like this. We should be on our knees before the God of the universe simply acknowledging His power and reign. He is the one true God, and should be worshiped as such. Not with hearts held back or knees unbent. He deserves our all.

Back to blogging... hopefully

Hey everyone! I hope all is well! This year has sure been a crazy one. But I'm hoping that I can start fitting in some blogging. School is crazy this semester and very stressful. The combination of biochemistry and genetics is not a good one. :P Especially when there are other classes that just keep me busy as well.
But other than school I have been pretty great! My menagerie keeps me on my toes, although it has thinned a little in the past year. I lost one goat this summer and I sold two goats last fall. So I'm down to 6 goats (3 big ones and 3 miniature ones), along with my Lucy Bug (Golden Retriever) and my cat Felicity. Plus my dad's cat and our family cat. I'm sure this many pets seems crazy to many people, but it is actually rather small compared with what it has been in the past.
In my spare time I have been cross-stitching, crocheting, and knitting. I kind of get into one and do it for a while and then switch to another one for a while. At the moment I have mostly been cross-stitching. I'll try to post some pics sometime soon.
I will also try to post some pictures of my Halloween costume this year. Being in college I don't trick-or-treat anymore but one of the college ministries in town has a gathering of college students every other week and the last one was right before Halloween so it was a costume theme. I dressed up as Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games. I thought I looked pretty great! I read the books last fall and fell in love with them. The movie was good but not nearly as good as the book (are any?).
I think that's about all the news that's of any significance. My plan is to write some posts and schedule them to post automatically. That way I'm still posting even if I can't get on. ;) We still don't have internet at home, but hopefully that will be changed before too long. :/
Bye for now and God bless!

Merry Christmas!!!

It's officially been way too long since I posted on my blog! I had big plans to post a lot over the summer but then our internet went out in June and since my dad was in Cleveland, Ohio working for NASA I wasn't able to fix it.
But now I'm posting! We still don't have internet and school keeps me super busy, so I doubt I will be able to post very much very soon. But we can hope!
I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!! Safe travels to everyone who is traveling and wonderful time with family or friends or whoever you choose to spend the holidays with.
God Bless!
~Guinevere

New Kitty

Well, it's official, we are insane. We have another cat! Which makes three for us and then occasionally four when my sister comes home and brings her's.

My dad found this cat down on our road a couple weeks ago and was afraid he was going to get hit so he (being the softy he is) brought him home. We put up signs and an add in the paper but no one claimed him. Which we thought was kind of weird because he is the sweetest little cat. I wonder if someone dumped him. But anyways, if they did, they chose the right country road. lol! We got him tested for feline leukemia yesterday (which we have lost several cats to and don't want to go through that again) and it came out negative so we got him his shots and brought him back home! He'll need a booster for the fe-leuk and we need to get him neutered too. He is in pretty good health besides some ear mites but we got meds for that too.

For now he is still nameless. We've been calling him Fluffy or things like that. I like to say "He's so fluffy I'm gonna die!!!" to him when I see him. =) (It's from Despicable Me, if you haven't seen it. lol!)

But I kind of think he needs a more original name. Like Mr. Bingley or Prince Caspian. His personality would fit Mr. Bingley, or we could go with the pun and call him Prince CATspian. lol! I had a cat name Prince until last year I think it was (he just died of old age) and I jokingly called him that a few times. Yeah, I'm a little weird. ;)

Maybe I'll come up with some name ideas and do a poll on here. If I can figure out how to do it. lol! :)

So there's Monsiour Fluffball. The newest addition to our family. :)

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Valentine's Day. But if today was not your favorite day I hope you remember that there is always Someone who loves you more than anyone else ever could. God has always loved you and He always will. His love is all you will ever need. With His love you can be complete.

GOD is LOVE

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." - I Corintians 13:13

Valentine's Swap!

Here's what I got from Lynn for the Valentine's swap that Parsley hosted.

She sent me a wonderful handmade card, some 20 ct. red cross-stitch fabric and 28 ct. purple fabric. I plan to stitch something Valentine's-y on the red and I have a few ideas for the purple but I'll need to see if they would look good on it. I want them both to be what I really want and not just the first idea that comes to me. I'm weird like that. lol!

She also sent me a couple different shades of purple floss and some white floss. As well as some cross-stitching needles. Which I only have the ones that came in my kits so I probably really needed those! :)

There were also some scissors and a scissor FOB that she made for me. Now, I'll own to my ignorance and admit that I don't know what FOB stands for... I know what a SAL is! I can cross-stitch but I'm certainly not saavy in all the lingo yet. lol!

And last but not least... chocolate!!!! Some wonderful Dove chocolates and Reese's Peanut Butter cups. Yum!

Here's the fabrics and scissors close up.

And the FOB. So pretty!

The floss and needles. The flash was reflecting off the needle's package really badly. :/

The card that she made. Recycled, no less! Such pretty colors!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day! Whether you spend it with your special someone or with friends or just by yourself, I hope your Valentine's Day is full of LOVE.

Crochetting!

Here are my first crochetted scarf and hat! I practiced a lot before I actually did it so I managed to only mess up a little at first and you can hardly see it if you don't look really close. ;) (I didn't have any good background for them so I had to use a blanket. But all my blankets are purple!! lol!)

And the matching hat:

Here they are together! Again, my sister gets props for picking out the beautiful yarn. She knows me well! :)

I also plan to make something for my dog Lucy out of the leftover yarn but I'm not sure exactly what yet. Maybe a mini scarf. lol!
Happy crochetting one and all!

Knitting!!

Here is my first scarf. I managed to get pretty good by the end of it!!!

 But the first part, well... not so good. lol! I like to call it my pregnant scarf. lol! Or it's a snake that swallowed something. ;)

And this is my second scarf! My sister gave me the yarn for my birthday. She has excellent taste, don't you agree?

I also just finished a collar for my dog out of the leftover yarn but haven't gotten good pics of it yet. I think I'll also make a hat to match.

So there are my recent projects! I still have a lot more yarn for more projects and even more ideas for what to do with it. lol!

Happy crafting everyone!

Snow Day Pt. 1

Here are pics of my first snow day! (please don't copy them. thanks!)

This first one is the footprints one of the cats left on the back porch. She wanted to go out so I opened the door and she stepped out there. Then she realized that the snow didn't get any better farther from the door so she turned around using as few steps as possible and JUMPED all the way back inside. I don't know if you can really tell how far it was but it was from the furthest prints. I just thought it was funny. This cat is one that really likes to spend time outside so I think she's getting cabin fever pretty bad.

Here's my Lucy Bug! All ready in her hand knitted collar. (Which my scarf matches!) Please excuse the laundry baskets and muddy paw prints. School keeps me so busy a lot of times I end up washing my clothes but never get a chance to fold them. lol! :P And this kind of weather means lots of doggy tracks all through the house! Yay! :/

Here's the view of the five acres.

Here's some of my little goats. Well, they are in the dog house. lol! I don't think they had ventured out yet. At least they get along and don't kick anyone out in this weather.

Here's Lucy's kiddy pool. In warm weather I fill it with water and she'll just lay down in it. When I was out feeding the goats last night she got in it. Not sure what she was thinking. lol!

You can't really see it in this pic but I thought the way the snow had drifted was so pretty.

When I took this picture I totally didn't think it would turn out. I had set the camera on the ground and took the pic from there. But then I was looking at them after I loaded them onto my computer and I thought it looked so cool!



So I just had to photoshop it. I used Picnik, it's a free online photo editing site. And I thought it turned out pretty good!

Lucy's checking something out. Looks like a plant to me. lol!

Now she's got snow on her little nosy! Isn't she so cute? She says: "Hi everybody! I love the snow but it keeps getting packed betweed my toeses. And that's not fun! But my mommy tries to help get it out. Bye now! Got to go do some more splorin!"

Yes, I love my dog too much. But I don't care, she's like my daughter.
Well, I hope you all are staying warm and safe!